Congress
House passes three-bill spending package with weeks left to avoid a shutdown
The House passed three government spending bills Thursday, inching Congress closer to funding federal operations ahead of the Jan. 30 deadline to avoid a shutdown.
The measures would fund the departments of Energy, Commerce, Interior and Justice, as well as water programs, the EPA and federal science initiatives through the end of the current fiscal year. The bipartisan vote comes as a relief to Speaker Mike Johnson, who had to mount a real-time whip operation on the floor Wednesday when conservatives threatened to tank the procedural rule paving the way for consideration of the funding legislation that was originally intended to be brought up in a single package.
A dozen GOP fiscal hawks were prepared to vote “no” on the rule unless leadership agreed to remove certain earmarks from the underlying package — and promised to revamp the earmarks process surrounding future spending bills.
To quell the rebellion, a plan was hatched to split up the package and accommodate two separate votes: one on the Commerce-Justice-Science bill, where discontent over certain earmarks couldn’t be resolved, and another on the Interior-Environment and Energy-Water bills coupled together. This maneuver allowed hard-liners to register their opposition to the Commerce-Justice-Science measure but still support the others.
The House ultimately voted 375-47 on Commerce-Justice-Science, with three dozen Republicans opposing, as compared to the just three Republicans who opposed the Interior-EPA and Energy-Water measures on a 419-6 vote.
Members of both parties also agreed to nix one particularly controversial, $1 million earmark sought by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for a program in her district.
A third vote Thursday, 397-28, was on final passage and to approve sending the three measures over to the Senate reconstituted into a package. Majority Leader John Thune is eying consideration of this bundle as soon as next week.
“Going forward, we’re going to be allowed a little more access to the bills and the ability to have an impact on them in the future — this next tranche,” Rep. Andy Harris, a senior appropriator and House Freedom Caucus chair, told reporters.
But House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) defended the bills against the lamentations of conservatives.
“These bills are the product of bipartisan, bicameral consensus and are grounded in a member-driven process,” Cole said in a floor speech Thursday. “It wasn’t meant to be easy. In fact, difficulty is what separates serious legislating from political convenience.”
Appropriators are already working on the next spending package they hope to move in advance of the month-end funding cliff. Legislative text could come this weekend, Cole told reporters Wednesday ahead of a meeting of chairs for the Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations and Financial Services appropriations subcommittees.
“All the reports I’m getting are very good,” he added in a Wednesday interview. “We’re getting good cooperation from our Democratic friends as well. I mean, people are serious about trying to get this stuff done.”
But Cole and his colleagues have their work cut out for them in passing the rest of the full-year funding bills for fiscal 2026. There are six measures Congress has not yet advanced, and they include some of the diciest of the bunch — among them, Defense and Labor-HHS-Education, which make up nearly 70 percent of all federal discretionary spending.
And the DHS portion of the next funding package has likely gotten even more unwieldy following this week’s shooting of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The House Republican in charge of that account, Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, acknowledged the events in Minnesota “will probably complicate the bill.”
The appropriations package advanced Thursday largely rejected the dramatic cuts requested by the White House, instead making more tailored spending reductions to energy and environment programs and those popular with Democrats.
The EPA would see a 4 percent, or $320 million, cut, instead of the more than $4 billion reduction President Donald Trump had sought. The National Park Service would face a moderate reduction from current funding levels, much less than the 37 percent cut the White House asked for.
One area set to get a boost are trade agencies, including an 18 percent increase for the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office and a 23 percent increase for the Commerce Department office responsible for designing and enforcing export controls used to target China and other countries.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted Republicans Monday for being “pro-data center without any restraints,” making his strongest rebuke yet of the tech industry’s massive infrastructure buildout as it becomes a key issue in midterm campaigns.
“Donald Trump and Republicans are divorced from reality,” Jeffries said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “They think that the affordability crisis is a hoax. Donald Trump and Republicans have made clear they love inflation. Donald Trump and Republicans have told the American people directly, ‘We don’t think about your personal financial situation.’”
“So the Republicans — it should come as no surprise — are pro-data center without any restraints,” he continued.
His criticism of Republicans’ approach to artificial intelligence and the infrastructure needed to power it comes amid a groundswell of voter frustration in key battleground districts about the impact of data centers on their communities.
Jeffries told Blue Light News earlier this year protecting consumers from rising electricity costs associated with the data center boom would be a priority on Democrats’ should they win the majority.
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Monday that communities that reject data centers will end up “backwards and poor.”
Jeffries specifically hit Republicans for policies embedded in their sweeping 2025 tax-cuts-focused domestic policy bill.
“House Republicans voted to preempt state and local authorities from regulating data centers at all,” Jeffries said. “And every single House Republican but one or two voted to unleash data centers on the American people in an unfettered fashion. That’s facts, right there.”
He specifically blasted vulnerable Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and David Valadao of California for voting to “give tax credits to people building massive data centers in communities across the country, particularly in rural America, without restriction.”
“They can try to run away from their votes right now,” Jeffries said. “We will not let them hide.”
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will speak at the Republican Study Committee’s weekly lunch Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the plans. The visit to Capitol Hill comes as more lawmakers express concerns about the burgeoning trade war President Donald Trump is escalating with Canada just months before the midterm elections.
House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) will also be speaking to the group of House conservatives.
The House is back in session, but it might be a short one.
Speaker Mike Johnson is looking to tick off the lone essential item on the chamber’s to-do list in lawmakers’ first days back: a Senate-passed, shutdown-averting spending bill.
A handful of other priorities are caught up in partisan battles and Senate limbo. Rebel factions in a thin House GOP majority continue to threaten Republicans’ plans of opening the floor for debate. And many Republicans are simply eager to get back home to campaign ahead of the November midterms rather than endure more headaches in Washington.
Together, those dynamics have fueled open speculation among members and aides that House leaders will call it quits until mid-November much sooner than the currently scheduled Oct. 1 exit date.
“So many people are having to run back and forth to campaign,” Rep. Morgan Griffith told reporters Thursday. “I think we can get some other things done [beyond the spending stopgap], but the big bills will probably have to wait until after the election.”
Johnson’s planning to put the spending bill on the floor Tuesday under a fast-track method, since there are reasons to believe it will pass without much drama.
The House agenda for this week also includes a vote from Republicans on a resolution condemning socialism — a political swipe at Democrats. And a potential vote is on tap to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards for alleged inappropriate conduct toward two female staffers following an Ethics Committee recommendation. Edwards attempted to clear his name last week ahead of the expected vote.
Other House priorities are stuck in the Senate or at a stalemate:
Key House Democrats believe the Senate-passed Russia sanctions bill gives too much authority to President Donald Trump, making it unclear it can pass.
Adoption of a budget blueprint for a fresh GOP party-line spending package is stuck amid competing demands from defense hawks, fiscal conservatives and some GOP senators who still aren’t convinced the bill is needed. Senate Republicans don’t expect the budget measure to be brought to the floor before the election, according to five people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions.
The Senate is expected to focus in September on confirming Trump nominees and holding a vote on cryptocurrency legislation, as well as trying to advance a bill to overhaul college athletics and the Senate version of the farm bill.
With those items deep in negotiations, there’s little incentive for House members to hang around to see if the Senate will play ball once it returns Sept. 14 for a brief three-week session.
Both chambers are already scheduled for recess next week following the Labor Day holiday, and many Republicans are expected to travel to Dallas then for the GOP’s midterm convention.
What else we’re watching:
— LAWMAKERS JOCKEY FOR E&C SPOTS: Lawmakers are already lobbying leadership to secure at least eight empty slots opening up on the powerful Energy and Commerce panel next year. Democrats Reps. Melanie Stansbury, Maxine Dexter, Jill Tokuda, Eric Sorensen and Luz Rivas have thrown their hats in the ring so far. Meanwhile, Republican Reps. Bob Onder and Brad Knott are working to convince leadership to put them on the panel.
— MILITARY WIDOWS STUCK IN BILL BRAWL: Military widows are caught in the middle of a bigger battle over how veterans should get compensated for their service. That House brawl over veteran benefits could ruin the last, best chance for widows to fix a decades-old law that strips away support benefits if they remarry. House lawmakers are eyeing mid-September for another vote on the legislation after a July vote was derailed amid opposition. If that’s successful, Senate Republican leaders have promised to fast-track the bill in an effort to send it to the president’s desk by the end of the year. If House lawmakers can’t, the measure will likely be shelved until at least the next Congress.
Mia McCarthy, Jordain Carney, Kelsey Brugger and Leo Shane III contributed to this report.
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
The Dictatorship12 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words